


Seven Signs

by Missy



Category: Army of Darkness (1992), Evil Dead (Movies), Evil Dead - All Media Types
Genre: Childbirth, Demons, F/M, Pregnancy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:36:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ash and Sheila are together - and married - after Army of Darkness.  But when they have a child, trouble ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Signs

**Author's Note:**

> Written for HetBigBang in '12. Thank you yo Amadi for beta!

_It took me a couple of years to get that life goes on after death. I deal with it every single blasted day; the dead pouring out of the woodwork like a buncha rotten worms. But what I’ve got right now ain’t like a zombie, shuffling around and sucking souls – not even like an angel tweeting up in the clouds or some demon screaming in the basement. It’s called having exactly what you want whenever you want it. It’s called marriage._

_Yeah, shove your smirk up your ass. So I’ve got a steady dame, a steady paycheck, and I’m a big wheel at the old Deadite killing factory. Doesn’t mean I don’t kick booty as hard as I did before. So I’m a little more careful, so what? Maybe I’ve earned the right after killing a bunch of rotten bastard-ass zombies to get where I belonged. Maybe, just maybe, I deserve a little peace and quiet after all of the crap I’ve been through in the past ten years._

_Yeah. Maybe._

*** 

Before:

Sheila eyeballed the test as she laid it to rest upon the smooth porcelain of the bathroom sink. Gingerly, she settled backwards against the tank of the toilet, winding up an egg timer and waiting for it to run out.

She wasn’t sure if she needed – wanted – an answer to the question the stick posed. They’d been going along at such a fine clip and then this had to happen! And for all she’d done to adjust to this strange new modern world unto which she had been thrust, Sheila had not calculated on the simple miscalculation of one piece of rubber failing to contain one ounce of semen; she had been so lost in her own passion, so new to the sciences behind coupling, that she did not think to stop Ash, to push him away. And so here she sat, with her churning stomach and swirling head, wondering when she might find the strength to stop and simply breathe. 

That was when his fists hammered against the door. “C’mon babe! I’ve gotta take a piss!”

Sheila cringed and seized the stick, jamming it with a cringe into her pocket. “Must ye stomp about like an ape in distress?” she grumbled, cinching her robe tighter. Sheila took a moment, then, to stare at here own pale face. She looked like a maiden in the throes of the moon sickness, even though her own courses had ceased more than two months before. Pinching her cheeks, she slunk toward the bathroom door and pulled it open for Ash. 

He pressed his way inside as Sheila squirmed her way around him, using the doorjam for leverage. She rolled her eyes at the loud, pronounced ‘aaah’ he released a second later. 

“Shall ye wash they hands?” 

“C’mon, baby,” he said, over the sound of water gushing into the basin, “I knew what I was doing. This ain’t like I’m back in the fourteen hundreds shaving yaks like your ancestors.”

“We did not shave these ‘yaks’,” Sheila replied haughtily. “We were wool merchants risen above station and done noble deeds by King William….”

“In 1180. Yeah yeah, I remember the story, dollface,” Ash growled. “Geez, there’re a few things I can remember, y’know.” He emerged from the bathroom with a click and a low sigh. He reached for her but she darted away. “Y’playing hard to get doll?”

She thought it was a little bit late for that, but remained coy in her expression. “Nay, milord. Wouldst thou enjoy the repast I hath prepared?”

“When did you have time to make breakfast?” He yawned and scratched himself in several obscene places. “And I thought it was my turn to shop.”

“Aye, ‘twas, but I could not wait for thee to create the noon meal…as ye oft sleep beyond noon.”

He smirks. “I’m an early riser everywhere else, babydoll.” 

She rolled her eyes at him. “Pish tosh. Ye rise and set as any man may.”

“Ouch. Leave some of that ego, I’ve gotta use it to get by,” he replied lightly. Sheila could only roll her eyes at his foolishness and turn back to the pot of oats she’d boiled. As she served Ash and herself, she could only think of the small plastic stick in her pocket which would in just seconds determine her wheal or woe. 

“You sick or something?”

She looked up to see him eyeing her over his plate. “Hmm? Nay. I simply have much to be thoughtful over.”

“Such as?” She couldn’t say anything. “Look, baby, I’m the brains of this outfit!”

“The brains?”

“Yeah! The head honcho, the top of the heap! Big Daddy Sawbucks!” He gestured with his cup of coffee wildly.

She picked up her toast, chewed it once and said quite heavily, “thy tie is in thy oats.”

Ash grimaced and pulled the offending piece of cloth out of mush. “You get what I’m saying! I’m the man of the house! So you just let me do all of the worrying from now on, got it?”

There was a soft chiming sound from the bathroom and Sheila’s insides lurched in alarm. She glanced at Ash; his brow had collapsed thoughtfully as he tried to source the sound. “Excuse me,” she said quite pleasantly, and dashed off.

The stick told her the future would be filled with love – but none from a new baby.

Ash was in the living room with his oatmeal when she emerged. He glanced up and slurped on the oats. “What? Did you need to take a leak?”

Sheila shook her head at him. “Nothing is amiss,” she said aloud, as if to convince herself of the fact. “And that is the nature of my malady.”

But he saw the stick in her hand, a sign of her deflation.

His eyebrow rose. “No?”

“No.”

And then Ash shuffled a hand through his hair. He seemed to be in a struggle with himself, unable to decide if he should be gleeful – seeming to know that if he were outwardly so she’d break down into a flood of tears. “Was this what you wanted?”

Sheila simply shook her head in response. “I wish’d for all the love Hold me,” she demanded. 

She ended up in his lap in the kitchen. “We’ve gotta talk about this,” he said, as if talking might solve the situation, as if it might heal the wounds lurking between them. 

But they didn’t talk. Instead he kissed her senseless in the kitchen.

And this time, much more took root within her than a simple hope of a child.

*** 

Intentionally trying to knock a girl up was more difficult than Ash imagined it to be. Intentionally knocking a girl up the same day you have to toast an entire store and deal with a police interrogation was a new one on him. 

They were bloody and exhausted by the the time they rolled into the bedroom. Sheila took up her needlepoint while he scrubbed off in the shower; by the time he came back she’d completed a single blossom.

He stared at the hoop while she used up the last of his hot water. Sheila was as deceptively strong as that blossom; vivid but fragile, at least that was how Ash saw it. She had been determined to come with him- so come along she did, though it was against the protests of her father, a high-powered lord.

He hadn’t ever imagined that he’d be the ‘victim’ of a shotgun wedding. But before he had time to think about it he was bound to a very tiny, very mad brunette with dark eyes and a strong pout. 

There was little else to remember before they slipped into the mutual coma of their hundred-year sleep. The odor of roses that rotted. The feeling of her, small and silky, clinging to his skin under the suit of armor he’d constructed with his bare hands. The feeling of her chest rising and falling against his side; the scent of her breath and the shift of her body in sleep, locomoting away in her own evening dance, her own dreams.

His dreams had been more peaceful with her beside him than they might have been were he alone. And he could barely force himself to admit that life with Sheila was better than life without her.

Ash thought that it would be the end of his life – that marriage would wreck everything and make him a henpecked househusband before the age of thirty. But marriage to Sheila had been easy – and surprisingly exciting. Who’d guess that familiar could be arousing, and that closeness could bring happiness? 

Especially after what he’d been forced to do.

His days had been bookended by luxurious lovemaking sessions, so Ash couldn’t quite name himself disadvantaged. Just worried about the next step, afraid of what he could be forced to live through with the next twist of time.

Sheila came back to their bed with a snort and a quiet moan; if she was sore, he thought to himself, it was her fault. He rubbed the pink marks his beard burn had left behind on her neck and thought to himself that he needed more time alone with her, in this world.

Ash could have squirmed his way out of their marriage in this modern world; easily, he told himself, without having to think twice. Sheila had no idea how legal contracts worked in the modern world, and he might have convinced her that no legal means bound them in his current time. She might buy it; he was Promised, and due more than a lion’s share of the proper respect as the Promised. But Sheila was as stubborn as a mule, and twice as smart – it wasn’t worth fighting his way free when she made him so damn happy. 

“Perhaps,” she said, leaning backwards over a pillow, offering herself to him obviously, “this might be the correct way?”

Now, with an open invitation like that – in spite of the danger attached to it, the sword-of-Damocles hanging over his head every time they made love, he wanted this – it was a fever under his skin, making the risk of eternal damnation every time he stepped outside the door completely bearable. Maybe it was the power of forty million years of evolution, or maybe it was just the need for human connection that trumped every little voice whispering in the back of his head. He fell onto her ivory form like a wolf slavering for blood.

“I dreamed of this when I was alone,” she offered when they’d finished fucking. It came so far out of left field that her stroking fingers completely took him off his game.

“I know I’m good, baby, but not that good.”

She chuckled. “Nay. I dreamed of having another to share my life with.” She stroked his chest hair gently. “I suppose ‘tis not easy to ken when ye’re as loved well and long as ye have been.”

“Flattery’ll get you everywhere, babydoll,” he declared, rolling the pretty brunette back underneath his stocky form.

Afterward, Sheila’s arms rested around his head, her legs still holding his hips close and tight. Her fingers combed his back like a child on the beach searching for buried treasure. “Ye shall never understand why I long for this,” she says, when he’s on the edge of consciousness. “Why I wish to never be alone again.”

Ash tried to battle back from the sleep fogging his brain, but instead he succumbed, his mind made lazy with sex, his blood pulsing with the hope of life.

**** 

One Month:

She had been throwing up for several weeks before it occurred to them that the food at the S-Mart’s Super Salad Buffet wasn’t what was making her ill. Sheila had counted the days off, twice, with a big red pen. 

“Looks like you’re waiting for a visit from Santa Claus.”

She marked off another red x, her nails coated with the blue-black effluvia of their last killed deadite. “I suppose I’m waiting for someone to enter my world. One must wait years for it to happen Ashley. Waiting but nine months is a small pittance.”

Ash had become uncertain of the folly they’d embarked upon. For Sheila this was a roll in the hay, a walk in the park. It was everything she’d ever wanted out of life and he knew it. But the more he thought about it, the more often he pictured a baby carriage and a woman pushing it into the abyss of blackness that was parenthood, faithfulness, and charity. 

He didn’t know what he really wanted for a baby. Or if he could ever dream of providing it.

But Sheila knew – or insisted she knew – what they were in the process of creating. And since his life consisted of power struggles and this small bit of life-shaking, world-cratering news would be a walk in the park. Compared to cutting off his own hand, it would be like a holiday.

He told himself that he’d married her out of pity, though he obviously could have had any woman in the world. He told himself this meant not a thing to him, that he was just another schmoe taking advantage of a pretty girl who had made the fatal error of being with him. 

When she finally emerged from the bathroom, her eyes were bright black clouds of pure joy. Ash swallowed hard and said, “yeah?”

Sheila’s mind seemed to race a million miles a minute. She counted the lines over and over again before holding it up for him to see. “Aye. ‘Tis at long last true – I shall give the an heir, fill the cradle at thy highboard. ‘Tis a great miracle!”

Ash was the one who felt like he was being booted from inside by a pair of very tiny feet. But he swallowed down the panic he felt. “Great, baby.”

He saw the disappointment flash through her expression as he turned away and knew he’d failed at concealing anything from her – too typical of their relationship. Very gingerly, she came to rest in the bed beside him.

“I’m gonna have to start strategizing. Those doors won’t hold if they aren’t reinforced,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “Gotta do what we can to keep the little guy from getting his head crushed like a grape.”

Sheila curled into a ball and let out a cry of muffled fear. All Ash could do was rest his hand upon her shoulder, stroking the warm skin as she sniffled. He watched her, total confusion in his expression.

“What’d I say?”

*** 

“That,” she said, holding his head against her belly a few hours later, “art the problem.”

“Huh?” He’d been having a damn nice nap when she’d started talking.

“Ye speak oft and quite rudely without much thought to my feelings and wishes. ‘Tis greatly disconcerting for me, and a bit of a disappointment. Thou must be truly set within thy ways if ye wish not to listen to my opinion.”

“I listen to plenty,” Ash complained. “I’d have to ram cotton into my brains to close out your gabbing at me.”

“La? See thy rudeness?”

“I didn’t mean it in a rude way! I’m just being, y’know…honest!” He insisted.

She shoved him off her belly. “Thy babe needs the succor of my body more than thou dost,” she declared, rolling over with a saucy huff and giving him a fine view of his backside.

“Y’know…” he said, leaning into her. “I hate it when you leave, but I like watching you go.”

“Hush,” she said, yawning. “Dawn doeth come.”

He leaned into her back and closed his eyes tightly. Dawn meant a thousand things to him these days; sunlight and renewal were but two of them.

Being with Sheila was the most important of all.

 

Two Months:

“Art thou happy?”

They’re in the middle of a blistering summer heat wave, toeing the line between heat exhaustion and self-immolation. He looks up from the plants he’s been tending two down in the greenery and gives her an arched eyebrow. “It’s not chopping off my hand in a dirty, sticky cabin, but I’ll take it.”

She shoves his arm lightly. “Ashley, I am serious. Thou art happy?”

“La, milady, very happy,” he replies, and that gets her a wiggle of his eyebrow and a filthy smirk.

“Oh honestly!” she sighed, pulling away from him. “Thou must be driven by other urges betimes!” 

“Yeah, the other one involves me making a lotta money, so I can slather your bod in diamonds and gold….” He reached over and pulled her up against his body, breathing unsubtly into Sheila’s ear as he wrapped both arms around her middle.

A soft laugh came bubbling up from between Sheila’s lips. “Ashley!” She batted away his hands in a furtive attempt at modesty. 

“We’re married,” he pointed out, unnecessarily. “Nobody’s gonna stop two old married folks from having a little fun…” She smiles and wrapped her arms around his neck, enjoying the warmth of his touch even as they endured the day’s stifling heat. 

The sounds coming from far too close by were the first, barely-noticed, sign that something was wrong. The demon’s growl pulled them apart, put him on the offensive. A claw cut across the fresh green things he’d planted and turned them a foul brown shade, withering them in – it was the only warning he had before a little old lady jumped out into the aisle way and bashed him across the face with her walker.

Sheila was becoming used to these little surprises; she only screamed once, and then he found her bashing the back of the Deadite’s head in with a large metal stake. That was his girl, he thought, as he chopped through limbs and torsos with a large pair of gardening shears, sinew and black blood ruining his shoes and flooding his nose with the scent and taste of spoilt meat.

When the woman froze into a rictus of everlasting death, they dropped their weapons and eyed one another over the mess. Limbs dissolved into an evil, sizzling goo that got washed off into the ground.

“Wonder what they’d do if the grass tried to swallow the customers souls.”

“Little,” Sheila was scrubbing at a spot of black blood that had bloomed over her heart, staining her bright blue S-Mart Employee vest. 

“Finally believe me that this damn place is evil,” Ash said. “Oughta burn it down and salt it over. Put up one of those megacenters with a frozen food aisle.”

“Ye are always an impossible dreamer,” Sheila noted.

“But I’d have cheeseburger sliders every damn day, baby!” He twirled the trigger of his power washer about his left index finger, like a trick shooter, like John Wayne; the cowboy of his own convenience store. He paused dead still when he saw her face.

It had turned white, the eyes bloodshot – a change that happened for just a second. 

Sheila touched her own cheek. “I feel heated. This August sun doth disagree with me.”

Ash squared his jaw and took her by the upper arm. 

“C’Mon. I’ll buy you a hot dog.”

*** 

Pregnant chicks are weird. 

Yeah, I know, ol’ Ash is playing Captain Obvious here. But I didn’t know how totally bonkers they could get ‘til I knocked up my little queen Sheila. 

And I’m not talking about the usual pregnant-chick weirdness. I mean, I’m talking about eating Pop Tarts with gravy, and complaining the sun’s a little too bright and the water’s not warm enough for her to drink. That kinda stuff.

I’m talking about talking in tongues and turning green for a couple of seconds.

I’m sure that’s no big deal. Just a little side-effect of the possession problem. It’ll clear itself right up in a coupla months, presto-chango. She’ll be back to normal and we’ll have our own little rugrat to torment.

Unless something crawled into her skin and made her a freak again.

‘Cause if it did, we’re screwed.

We’re both totally screwed, but the odds are we’d be screwed anyway, whichever road we took.

***   
Three Months:  
“Okay, so you’re right - we won’t find a Wiseman in the Yellow Pages.”

Sheila let out a choked laugh, resting her spread palm against her belly. “Perhaps we might advertise for a soothsayer.”

“Or we could say the magic words and go back in time.”

She opened an eye and stared up at him. The couch had, with her frequent bouts of nausea in the last month and unpredictable ability to abruptly go Deadite on him out of the blue, become her homebase when she wasn’t working – which had become a risky prospect. Sheila’s expression had gone resolute as Ash spoke. 

“If ye believe ‘tis the best way to receive my absolution, I should welcome the motion.” The words were dry and completely resolute.

Ash sat down and raked a hand through his hair, eyes ruefully dancing over her face. “It could be real dangerous, baby.” 

“And danger art not part of our everyday world?” Once again, she was utterly calm in the face of his mounting panic, which made him feel womanly, childish, hapless and unprepared. Her fingers closed around his. “I shall not surrender our love to some foreign power, Ashley.”

“This ain’t some castle siege,” he said, trying to pull out of her grip. “We’re talking demons, baby. Something in your skin that’s trying to eat your body alive.”

“And we hath always had the power to drive them away,” she declared. “We must hie to the past.”

“You,” he declared, “ain’t hing anywhere. I’m gonna go it solo, bring him here – you stay in bed.” He picked up the gun, spun it about by the trigger mount, and tucked it into the sheathe strapped to his back. “Try not to go loco while I’m gone.”

She pouted at him ‘I know no ‘loco’. I shall remain as I am and ever was – here and at thy service.” She rested her palm against her belly – the place where the child lay, barely two months into its gestration – and said, “But _do_ hurry back!”

Ash squared his jaw. “Y’think I’d leave you out here all alone to starve?” He truly knew she wouldn’t, but Sheila was fragile in all of the wrong places; the dullest glare could send her off into a fit of anger that he felt il-equipped to deal with at the moment.

“Nay, love,” she said, quite firmly. “We shall thrive in thy absence. And I shall hold these fits at bay.”

He squeezed the hand he didn’t remember reclaiming. “Good. Don’t make me have to kick your butt.” 

She watched him leave the room, eyes half-open, lips arranged in a frown. He should by now know that she was no shrinking violet – and that in the end she would try to make her own solution to the puzzle irking them.

*** 

Vortex potions, Ash decided, simply aren’t what they used to be. Crashing to the ground in hostile territory, though, felt just like it always did.

It took him two hours to convince the old man to come with him, and as many to get the bag of bones and his book of Scary Ass Spells through the vortex and into Ash’s place. After that, he and Sheila quickly locked themselves away in the bedroom, leaving Ash to pace outside.

Even though he absolutely wasn’t scared. It was the wind that was making his hand shake – he’d have to check the berrings on the damn thing, make sure it was in working order. He switched on the TV and flipped through the stations, trying to find some mindless action picture or terribly dumb skinnemax movie to take his mind over the soft chattering going on in the bedroom.

It seemed as though a year had passed until the door finally opened. 

“Please remain seated, Promised One.”  
Ash slunk back against the couch and eyed the Wise Man with concern. “Lay it on me.” He’d rather have the band-aid ripped off than deal with the niggling, painful tug-and-pull of the Wiseman’s attempt at niceness.

He sighed, settling against the chair. “It is likely the comingling of thy essences that hath sickened and marred thy lady’s gentle ways.”

“In English, man,” Ash demanded.

The Wiseman sighed his long-suffering sigh and declared, “I believe that the demonic influence that ye both hath survived hath traveled to the child’s blood. Thy lady’s will art too strong to passively accept these attempts to overtake her body and fight it with every fibre of her being.” 

Ash’s grip tightened against the arm of the chair. “Is she gonna die? Am I gonna have to kill her?” His voice hardened into blasé acceptance; he could numb himself if he had to – must numb himself if he had to against the overwhelming evil that might swallow them both whole. 

The Wiseman shook his head sadly. “It may result in a child of purely demonic influence, or perhaps it shall simply be shed upon its arrival.”

“So we play the waiting game?” Ash glowered. “That’s what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Aye. There art charms at thy hand, spells, the lady may try to keep the demon fully at bay. I hath created her some potions and given her a goodly number of incantations. One may work as well as the words ye misspake to keep the evils of the netherworld at distance…”

“A crap shoot. Old man, you’re trying to sell me on a crapshoot!” His fist hit the couch and the poor seat gave a shriek of alarm.

“….I do not mind it, Ashley,” she declared, leaning in the doorjam. Ash’s head shot up, and he saw Sheila watching him with her dark-eyed, utterly certain gaze. “Twill simply be a more frightening version of the moon sickness, nothing more.”

“Sheila,” he cleared his throat, the old cowardice rising. “There are ways to take care of this. We can make sure nobody gets hurt…”

She shakes her head. “For others that may be the perfect choice. But I….” she sighed. “I wish to simply be present within the hour. ‘Tis the duty of the lady of the house to bring forth life…”

“…Not in this day and age…”

“Aye, ‘tis my sole wish to deliver such joy to thee. I adore thee with all my soul…” she cringed; a flash of pale skin and a return to normal. “And if I doeth die to bring forth, I shalt be glad of the pain, to have lived so thoroughly.”

“And what if you squeeze out a fistful of death, doll? Huh? Whatt’m I supposed to do then?” he glared.

“Then I shall have served my purpose in thy world. ‘Tis nothing else I can give thee, love,” she said. 

Ash grabbed the leather jacket he’d carelessly thrown over the arm of the easy chair. He had to get out of there and do a little thinking.

“What art thou about?” Sheila wondered.

He eyed the old man. “I’m taking grandpa back home,” he declared, growling out the spell. It was a long, hard jump to get back there, but he managed it.

Five Months:

“Oh Ashley!” Sheila’s voice drew him out of the trance he’d let himself slip into. Warily, he glanced over his shoulder to see his wife resting against the sofa, her dress pulled up to display – as modestly as possible – the burgeoning roundness of her stomach. 

Over it, Sheila held the necklace she’d brought to the present with her – a last gift from her mother, and a talisman of her past. 

“What the hell are you doing?” he wondered. It came out gruffly, in a way he hadn’t meant to push forth, but she only stuttered briefly in her motion. The necklace swung back and forth, in rhythm to the circular ceiling fan cooling the room.

“I hath spoken with Rhonda.”

Ash groaned. “If she told you cheese wiz is part of the four food groups, she’s lying.” Rhonda had interesting opinions on infant nutrition that she wasn’t afraid to bellow about. 

“Nay,” she replied. “But she didst say that women of modern times oft played this game.” She doubled the leather strand over her index finger and said, “They wouldst suspend a necklace o’re the mother’s belly, then watch it spin. If it mov’d counter-clockwise, ‘twould be a girl – clockwise, ‘twould be a boy.”

Ash peered over the arm of the couch at Sheila. The strand was rocking to and fro, totally unsettled on a single direction. “It’s just reacting to the fan, babe,” Ash growled.

“Ye’ve nay given it time to change,” she sighed. “Perhaps ye might allow it to rest and spin ‘round once more?” 

Ash glared at the necklace as if it were a foreign body, a poison. Slowly – almost imperceptibly to the eye of anyone who’s not as utterly paranoid as Ash was – it began to rock in a clockwise motion. 

Then slowly stopped. 

Its dead, motionless floating filled Ash with alarm. And then it snapped dramatically to the right, out of his hand, tearing the chain. His eyes tracked upward with aching slowness toward Sheila’s face; a face gone wizened and white-eyed. 

It smiled at him with yellowed teeth. “Heed our words, Promised!” came a voice that was unearthly, demonic, rattling up from her vocal cords in terrifyingly guttural tones. “We shall have their souls!” 

Ash’s fingers tightened against the arm of the chair – his gun was an inch away, easily reachable. His lips tipped upward into a confident smile. “Can’t take ‘em, can ya?” he taunted. “For some reason, she’s still in there – they both are.”

The eyes narrowed. “It is of no matter of importance. She shall be tamed and destroyed, along with your own precious soul!”

Ash swallowed hard, desperately trying to look brave as Sheila slowly returned to normal.

When it ended she opened her eyes and looked up to meet his gaze. “Oh,” her fingers pressed against her lips, tears welling up in her eyes. “It…occurred once more?”

Ash reached for the leather thong, the necklace. To mollify her worries, he dangled the shortened chain and its hammered metal talisman from his metal index finger.

It swung in an easy, natural clockwise motion.

Now Sheila’s tears spilled over. “A son.”

“I ain’t putting stock in this hoo-doo,” Ash scoffed. “it’s just the wind, baby.”

She ran a finger over his dimple. “Thy smile disagrees with such foolishness.” 

“Whatever.” He got up with a laugh. “C’mon baby. Time for some Chinese.” 

Six Months

The thing about having a semi-possessed pregnant wife that really scared Ash wasn’t even the uncertainty at this point. It was the wear and tear it took on Sheila.

He knew she didn’t think he noticed – that he was insensitive to her misery under the titanic weight of his own daily fears. But he had an eye out for her – knew how she felt by the look on her face, the way she carried her body. So he decided to pull the good husband card and get a room for them at the nicest inn in the calmest suburb of Dearborn, with every intention of whisking her away for a weekend when his boss wasn’t shitweasling him into doing another midnight inventory. 

Well, one month passed into another, and by the time he landed a reservation at the place Sheila was as round as a beach ball and suffering from hugely swollen ankles in her sixth month. 

“Hey, I’m doing you a favor!” Ash had cried out when she’d pouted and glared at him for springing such a surprise upon her. “You need this baby- a little sun, a little song, a little topless tanning…” 

“Topless,” she blushed, stammered and glared. “In December?”

Sheila was incredibly sensible, but Ash was – as always – perpetually horny when it came to his wife. “Sure. Ever tried to do the Balinese back crawl in a tanning bed?”

“I cannot do anything in the horizontal position until the birth of the child,” she declared, glaring at her belly, her hardened expression immediately melting as the child rolled against her palm. 

Ash stared at her stomach. In spite of all of strangeness of knowing that his wife carried within her his child, he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the breadth of her belly. “Kicking your kidneys again?”

She smiled, reached for his wrist. “Rolling. It remains the most disconcerting experience.” 

“Yeah. Can’t imagine what it feels like to have the little guy playing bocce balls with your bladder.” 

“Thou does hath experience with containing another,” Sheila reminded him, and he growled.  
“Don’t even try to kid me about that.” And besides that, Ash was sure that wasn’t quite the sensation he’d experienced with The Evil Doppleganger, but he imagined they were comparable. 

Sheila simply held out her hand and demanded Ash place his in hers. “Thou art a most perplexingly peculiar man,” she declared lightly. “All other men of thy position and station wouldst be pleased to feel the motion of thy child within the belly of their wives.” This was a return to her previous haughtiness, and he smirked to note the squaring of her shoulders and the firming of her jawline. This was the Sheila he’d fallen for, and in the rush and stress of their lives, the Sheila he often forgot existed beneath the veneer of proper wifery and prim caretaking.

His hand rested against the smooth, soft exterior of her stomach. For a moment he felt nothing besides the hale and hearty beat of his wife’s heart, felt the rush of air in her lungs tug inward and outward as he spread out his palm against her. Then there was the tiniest hummingbird sensation of movement; a jerk, and a roll of flesh beneath her stomach. A tiny earthquake of movement that set him still. This human – not him, not Sheila, but chunks of their flesh and bone, a flow of their blood – exists beneath his touch, in independence. He cannot protect this child directly nor can he imagine being absent of cowardice when she or he was born, but Ash felt a strange, instinctive pull toward his own flesh and blood; a protectiveness he could not turn away from nor explain.

“Wow,” he said dumbly. Wow was an understatement for the feelings he repressed. 

“Tis amazing, is it not?” Her eyes were tired but filled with an amazing amount of joy. 

Ash nodded stupidly. “I uh…I…” he felt a sudden, sharp thrum and pulled away fearfully. “Little jerk’s trying to kick my ass before he’s born.”

“ _She,_ ” Sheila declared with great emphasis, “art simply expressing frustration in her wish to be born forth.” A bemused expression crossed Sheila’s face. “Tis a most impatient wee one I carry. Much as the sire art.” She winced – a small twinge crossing her face. Before Ash could conjure the words, he felt the breeze.

The demon that replaced his wife seemed far more relaxed than the last one that had haunted her skin. Though far more frustrated of expression. “Why will you not simply let us have her?” the demon wondered. “Why does she struggle still? Would it not be easier on her, simply to give her flesh unto us and see her soul to the hell it is destined? We shall make her suffering far less painful than the one guaranteed her if you struggle.”

“Sorry, Ms. Channing,” Ash growled. “But this is one bucket of raspberries you can’t squash.”

“Even your quips grow weaker, Chosen.” An even grin crossed the demon’s face. “When the baby’s time grows near we shall make our claim on their souls. It must be done at the proper time, but until then,” its smile turned even more wicked, green teeth flashing, “we shall continue to visit you for the joy of watching you squirm.”

In a flash, the darkness was gone, and Sheila’s dark eyes blinked up at him. “But there must be a way to cause this to cease, Ashley.”

“The professor said ‘total bodily dismemberment’.” The words are tattooed on Ash’s grey matter – he couldn’t escape them if he had a jetpack . “You got a pretty face, doll – too pretty to turn into hamburger because some old coot a billion years ago decided this mudball needed some poor dope like me to defend it.”

She reached out for him, pulling Ash close to her body. “They cannot have me. Whatever bit of bread and circus they take, it t’will be by force. But they shall not have me entire, long ye live as well.”

He rolled his eyes.” “Nice speech, doll. But dead’s dead. I’m not enough of a sap to pretend it ain’t.”

“Love goes on, Ashley. Ye know it does.”

He just closed his eyes and pulled her closer. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What matters not?”

“Doesn’t matter If it’s a boy or a girl,” Ash said. “I won’t care, either way. Long as it’s healthy.”

She burrowed deeper into his side, closing her eyes. “Aye, I know, but oh, Ashley, I so yearn to give thee a son!” 

But even as she said the words, he knew he’d be happy with whatever he got out of the deal. He’d never dare to admit it to himself, but some tiny bit of himself – the one little morsel hidden deep-down in his guts, his heart – knew that whatever he got out of the deal was a blessing, anyway. And something he truly didn’t deserve. 

**** 

_Seven Months_

“Would you like to see the baby?”

Ash squinted at the ultrasound screen. “There’s a baby?”

Sheila’s laughter was a musical rush of enjoyment. “The roundelay of circles,” she said. “Peer more closely.”

The doctor – a red-haired obgyn with a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose – laughed and shoved the monitor toward Ash. “This is the head,” she declared, drawing a circle around the amorphous lumps that looked like pennies placed on a viewfinder. “And these are the hands.”

“I got it,” he growled, staring at the arrangement of fingers and toes and a beating heart that seemed to be smaller than his own thumb. “Boy or girl?” he asked, then to Sheila, “boy or girl? Do you wanna know yet?”

“’Tis thy decision, milord,” she said. He offered an awkward laugh to the woman. 

“Uh, she’s really into roleplay. And since she ain’t being helpful, I guess we’ll wait.”

“All right,” she smiled. “That’ll be all for today, then. You can pay at the front desk.”

“Yeah yeah. Wish you’d forget that part of the whole damn thing for once,” Ash muttered. He dug out his insurance card while Sheila sat up, the wax paper on the exam room table crunching underneath her as she held the ultrasound between her hands.

“Tis a miracle, Ashley.” Her eyes were starkly wide from the surprise of the sight, the experience of the day.

“A miracle would be reuniting The Ramones, baby.” But his voice didn’t hold its typical sarcastic edge, and Sheila smiled and squeezed his fingers softly.

“We can print you off a copy of this,” declared their doctor. 

“Two, please. I require one for my work station.” 

“You shouldn’t be working, baby. It’s getting close and the..” he paused. “Aunt Flo moments are getting closer and closer together.”

“Aunt Flo has been silent this month! I believe it hath been tamed by my will.” 

“I’m sorry,” her doctor spoke up suddenly, turning toward Sheila. “are you spotting?”

Sheila blushed, her fingers curling against the bedspread. “Nay! Tis simply a word we’ve developed…”

“…Code word for her mood swings, doc. Nothing to get worried about.” He knew he should’ve picked a more public-friendly codeword for her little shifts in attitude, but they’d both wanted something easily understood and accessible. 

“Right.” She tore off a prescription. “You need more vitamin c. EAT ORANGES.” She patted Sheila’s hand. “But the baby looks good, all of those milestones are being reached.”

Sheila grinned. “Tis a simple enough prescription. I shalt call thee if I hath experienced any troubles.” 

“You really should. Getting close to your delivery day.” 

Sheila’s smile faded slightly, and her stomach shifted as she moved to rise. “Aye. Tis a time I look forward to with great concern.

The elderly woman gave the two of them a toothy grin. “Your first?”

Sheila gave her a smile. “Aye. ‘Tis near to being born.”

“A heavy kicker, eh?” she smiled at Sheila, then at Ash, who stared at them both with total fear in his expression. “Something she gets from her father.”

Ash cramed a hand between the woman and Sheila’s belly. “Back right the hell off,” he demanded. 

“Oh my – am I bothering you.”

“No,” Sheila said.

“Hell yes,” replied Ash. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but my wife doesn’t need the advice of some old biddy.”

She handed them a small white wooden cross, pressing it into Sheila’s palm firmly but gently. “You have people watching out for you, dearie,” she said. “I was sent by a man with a white beard who cares for you very much.”

“Nice try lady,” Ash glared. “But Santa’s pasty white ass ain’t gonna help us out of this mess.”

“I don’t know Santa, Mister Williams. But I do know a certain man with a white beard from your distant past who wants to make sure you’re both alive by the end of this pregnancy. Are you willing to listen to my instructions, or will I be forced to call in a higher authority than both of us?”

“I’m not afraid to make a scene, lady,” Ash growled. “If I were, Sheila and I wouldn’t be together in the first place.”

The older woman took Sheila’s hand. “Child, there’s a storm coming. To keep you both from being consumed by it, you should always keep this cross with you, for it carries a great power that shall protect you from the Necronomicon’s wanton destruction!”

“Stow it, ya old bag!” Ash shouted.

“Well, then,” she said crisply. “We have a problem. For old I may be,” she smiled as she reached into her purse. Ash desperately reached toward her, ready to clock her right in the chin if she made a threatening move, but all she held in the palm of her hand was a flagon made of clay. “I still possess the power to help thee.”

Her tone had turned soft, lulling, and the accent definitely British. Sheila smiled. “The Wiseman hath sent thee.”

“Yes. I have experience with such…conditions as thine.” Her accent turned American. “So mister Promised over there needs to sit back and let me help you, got it?”

Sheila elbowed Ash. “La, we shall accept thy help with great joy, and thank thee evermuch for it.”

Ash’s response was more succinct. “Great. More bullshit from the past.”

“Helpful. The kind of bullshit that shall prevent your wife from dying and prevent your child from becoming a vessel for demonic possession for all eternity.”

Ash growled, but his fingers wove against the chair arm. “Fine, all right, we’ll take it!” Ash bellowed, grabbing the cross and shoving it into his pocket.

“Ashley…. “ Sheila pleaded.

“I’ve seen this shit before, doll, “he growled. “It’s my job to stop you from going all Rosemary’s Baby, and this chick and her religious hoo-hah ain’t gonna keep you from going psycho.” 

“Maybe you should learn to trust your fellow man, promised, before you have nobody left to turn to,” the old woman told him crisply. “Now good day to you both. Sheila, my number is attached to that cross; if you need me, call me.” She stood with surprising agility, trucking toward the exit, her obvious anger at Ash’s stubbornness making her unnervingly, ramrod straight in posture.

Sheila controlled her temper, which was a frightening prospect. Ash knew that meant he was in for a night of cold shoulders and frosty glares, and he frankly wasn’t in the mood to endure any of it. 

“Look, doll,” Ash muttered. “I dunno if you think she’s some kinda crazy prophet. But we’ve met jerks like this before, and they’ve all wanted to take us out. I ain’t gonna let you get hurt. Not on my watch, not anymore.” 

“Aye, I may hath guessed. Thou art always stubborn, milord.” She opened the manila envelope containing their ultrasound pictures and picked up one of the photos. “My dearest hope is that he lacks thy stubborn willfulness as well. Perhaps this woman shalt bring us joy and peace that we both doth seek. Ye shall ne’re know if we do not call her in return.”

“Are you gonna beg me?” Ash wondered. Sheila never begged for a thing, and the idea of her lowering herself to doing so left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Nay, Milord,” she said, sweet-voiced. “Ye know I wouldst ne’re beg thee for a pittance.” 

Ash raised an eyebrow at her. “Maybe we can see her again, then. Maybe. If she’s not crazy.” He turned his attention toward the ultrasound and shivered.

He swore he saw claws on the little bugger’s fingers.

***   
Seven Months:

The room smelled like an Herbal Essences ad and Ash – blowing his nose voluminously into his sleeve – swore if he didn’t find the source of it soon he’d end up with basil growing out of his eyesockets. 

He glanced into the kitchen. “Sheila?” A huge puff of smoke greeted Ash first, and he waved away its steamy essence and inhaled another medicinal puff of air. At the center of the kitchenette, poised over a large stew pot, stood his wife and Mufti, chuckling and clacking away as they discussed the latest news of the moment. 

“Ashley,” Sheila said warmly, turning toward Ash and getting her arms around him. A soft kiss to the cheek made him lean against her mouth, but he made no other acknowledgement to Sheila’s reaction, his eyes bored holes into Mufti’s face.

The older woman waved a spoon at him. “Good afternoon, Promised,” she declared, giving it a final stir to the bubbling mixture. “The stew is complete, Sheila.” 

“Excellent,” she said, waddling toward the counter to help Mufti ladel out bowls. 

Ash stared at them, incredulously, as they went to work. “I thought you guys were looking into protective charms, shit like that.”

“Aye, we have. “

“…And this is it?” Ash couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice. 

Sheila continued to play with her silverware. “Combining mint with ground pork and the flesh of three tomatoes art alleged to ward away evil spirits. And the herbery shall do likewise the same.”

“You’re gonna try and fight ancient demons with lettuce leaves?” Ash growled, incredulous. 

“Tis not the lettuce that provides the protection!” Sheila insisted.

“As the lady says,” offered Mufti, “It isn’t quite as the ancient rhymes make it seem. One must be careful to study the words of the demon without invoking them.”

Sheila gave Ash a wry smirk. “I’m afraid Ashley art not adept at doing such things.”

Ash glowered at her. “It ain’t my fault, damn it! The book…”

“…Aye, the book confused thee and confounds thee often into acts ye would not normally perform. I hath heard it oft enough – the words art tattooed upon my victuals.” Sheila gave Mufti a smile. “Much of our luck is weird and accidental. Herbary shall, perhaps, protect the lot of us.”

“Right,” Ash growled. “Look, doll, there ain’t any other way for us to go through with this crap. You two can yammer about your fancy mumbo-jumbo, but the only way we’re gonna stay safe is if you keep on your toes and let me teach you how to shoot.”

Sheila paused to consider the notion. “And if I allow thee to do so, what shall I have learned?”

‘That I can’t always be here eating pretty leaves and shit just to make you happy.” Ash tugged the wooden spoon she’d been holding from her hand easily. “Ahah!” he crowed, weaving it through the air. “I’ve disarmed you! Whatt’re you gonna do about that, huh?” 

Sheila stared at the spoon wavering before her eyes, then looked deep into Ash’s smug face before her knee jerked upward, making swift, hard contact with his balls. Groaning out in agony, Ash, wide-eyed, doubled over and grabbed himself, dropping the spoon –which Sheila quickly held aloft like a scepter. “That,” she declared dryly, and dropped the spoon back into the stew. 

“That’s…cheating,” Ash choked out, straightening up. “First rule of combat is no below-the-belt stuff.”

“La. I am certain you observed such pleasantries on the field of conflict,” Sheila said, expression utterly impassive. 

He pouted at her, then set eyes on Mufti. “Hey, how about giving us some goddam privacy?”

“If you’d speak to me kindly,” she smirked, “I would. Gladly. But if you’re going to be rude…” she sipped the stew and tossed a large handful of whole-wheat noodles into the pot. “This is going to take another fifteen minutes,” she declared. “And the bread needs an egg wash.” She shoed Ash away with a wave of her hands. “This is drudgewoman’s work, and there are better things to do in the living room, aren’t there?”

Sheila grabbed Ash by the elbow and pulled him toward the door. “We’ll be eating in twenty minutes.”

“Hey, at least lemme get a beer first!” But Sheila was surprisingly strong for someone so short and so heavily centered to gravity – Ash tried to scrape his fingers along the molding, searching for some kind of grip, and quickly found himself standing around in the living room. He opened his mouth.

“Beer with dinner,” Sheila instructed firmly. Ash frowned, his middle finger wagging ineffectually in mid-gesture. “Ye might wish for more, but I shalt not allow thee to grow drunk with a bare belly. Mufti wishes to discuss many things with thee this eve, and I shall not have the addlepated.” 

Ash paused, inclined his head, glared at Sheila. “Why can’t she talk about it with both of us?”

Sheila’s chin firmed, and she stared him down with those dark eyes of hers. “Why can’t she talk about it with both of us?”

Sheila’s chin firmed, and she stared him down with those dark eyes of hers. “She hath already spoken to me in confidence. The trick will be to get thee to listen.” She tossed her head and waddled away with as much dignity as she could muster. Ash could only stare at her back while she retreated, trying to figure out just how he’d manage to make it through dinner without losing his cool.

*** 

To his surprise, the women made it a lively though restrained affair. Keeping his head above water, Ash mowed down his food and pointed at Mufti with the tines of his fork. “Okay, doom chick,” he said, shoving away from the table and dropping his silverware, “come make with the demonic gloom.” 

Mufti sighed and tossed aside her napkin. Sheila trundled to her feet and started gathering the discarded food, but Sheila stopped her with a glittering smile. “I am not helpless,” she declared, piling the wrinkled napkins and empty bowls into a pile. “Ye may converse in peace within the kitchen.” 

Mufti eyed Ash, who pushed his chair backward and stomped toward the kitchen with quiet, gutsy determination. Mufti followed without cowing herself into submission – her expression was implacable and bright-eyed as she sealed the door behind them. The comforting cooking scents made a parody of the undomestic scene surrounding them.

“Lay it on me. Is she toast or do we have a shot to kill these sons of bitches?” He made his words as hars as he possibly could, wanting the emotional band-aid to be ripped off as quickly as possible.

Mufti leaned against the counter, her voice automatically slipping back into its natural Gaelic tones. “The demon within her grows stronger. It feeds upon her goodness, her kindness, and in desperation she tries to be kinder than even her nature would allow.” Mufti stared into the half-filled cauldron of soup. “While ye rid thyself of the demon that plagued you, Sheila is more vulnerable to the insidious nature of the devil. Ye have the charge of cynicism within thee, and that has helped ye wholly expel the demon. Where ye did not believe, Sheila’s heart dwells within the church – she believes it with every fibre of her soul. Deep within Sheila hides a sweet nature of true faith. She believes so wholly in goodness that she cannot allow herself to believe in the danger, that she might be taken forever by the evil. With the babe within her, she is inclined to fight more, and the evil within her is encouraged to drink even more deeply from the well of her goodness.”

“So the baby…”

“It is a true symbol of innocence and goodness. The demons have an ugly hunger for its soul. Sheila is stronger than their whims – for the moment. But at the time of her birthing, she will be physically weakened by the strain - there shall be a moment of vulnerability that will allow them to possess her. The key shall be forcing them to release her”

“So you’re telling me there’s no hope at all. Christ, why the hell did the Wiseman send you?”

Mufti shook her head. “There is power in the love she feels for thee – the love she feels for the child. If she can remember that in the travails of her possession she shall be released from the bond of the demon’s grip. But that is a possibility left to the future, and to the untold power the baby’s innocence. The demons hunger for it – but they have not consumed it whole. There is hope yet, Ash. Ye must hold unto it.”

“So sit and wait. Again. Christ,” he grumbled, pitching the ladle into the sink. The satisfying clatter that resulted was not from the cooking instrument but from the living room. Mufti had pushed beyond Ash but he dogged her footsteps, hand on the rifle permanently strapped to his leg.

Sheila stood hovering in the middle of the room, her eyes bright white, her limbs jerking. The voice was not her own. “We strike! We strike now!” 

And as if a wire had been cut, her body fell limp to the floor, under a spreading stain of gore.

***

9 Minutes:

Ash, for once, was forced to do what Mufti said as they spread out towels and blankets on the living room floor. Sheila drifted in and out of consciousness; when she was awake her hands scrambled for his, and he could only squeeze them in turn before they rapidly cycled back into those of a cloven-souled monster. The pains seemed to bear her off in waves, and as Mufti plunged her clean hands between Sheila’s bloodstained thighs Ash sat, as tense and ready as he had ever been, to do his duty properly. 

They couldn’t have her. In spite of the mountain of misgivings that seemed to rise up between them and the utter fear that he’d never be able to function as a father, Ash knew that he wouldn’t give up her soul without a fight. 

So he knelt beside Mufti and counted the contractions of his wife’s unfeeling body, hearing Sheila’s heartbreaking cries and dodging furniture whenever the demon took over. Twenty minutes passed and Mufti ducked under Sheila’s skirts.

“She’s ready. PUSH, milday!”

Sheila – stained with sweat, and lost in the dreaming sleep of her possession – was roused enough by the instruction to finally clamp down. Ash could feel every contraction through the tenseness of her body; the ripple of her muscles and the fear in her tense bones. But she managed not to lose herself utterly as the lights flickered and the wind moaned – he heard the splinting of glass an the howl of wind as, inch by inch, the child was brought into the world.

A counter screamed and cracked as the world roiled like a cauldron around them. Ash held onto Sheila’s hand, her slippery shoulders, as the midwife vigorously cleaned the baby. Ash kept an eye on the child’s tiny, squinched face. 

“Is he…”

“…He’s well,” the nursemaid said. “breathing. But is he unchanged?”

Ash eyed the baby with fear. Then his eyes turned toward Sheila’s palid face, dripping with sweat. “Baby?” 

The eyes flew open, revealing yellow pupils.

“NO!” Ash shouted. “MY GOD NO!”

Then a fist crashed into his jaw, silencing him.

She rose mechanically, her eyes white. “WE LIVE!” she shouted. “WE LIVE, AND HER SOUL IS OURS FOR ALL ETERNITY!”

Ash felt himself crumble in despair for just a moment, until the midwife’s words once again stuck within his mind. _Don’t give up faith!_ How the hell could he avoid doing that?! Staring into the suddenly-howling wind, he saw his wife’s face outlined in the moonlight and thought back to the night they’d conceived their daughter. 

_Remember – but how?_

His eyes lit upon the kitchen chair, where they’d sat. A shock of courage caused him to grab her and pull her into the chair just behind her legs. Stunned by the action, Sheila sat frozen.

“Remember?” Ash wondered, begged, pleaded. Would she, could she, remember anything?

He saw her eyes clear. Slowly, easily, blink by blink. Then her head reared back and, with a sudden shriek, a foul black cloud was expelled into the air. Ash ducked out of the way, his grip on Sheila solid, as the cloud gathered into a ball above their heads.

He noticed it not as Sheila’s eyes flittered open. She smiled at him, then her hand rushed down toward her abdomen. “The babe?”

He looked over his shoulder to see Mufti cowering back from the cloud spreading out over their heads. All at once, it arrowed toward the center of her face, making a beeline for her mouth.

And she made the mistake of screaming.

Ash watched the change come over her. He’d never witnessed a Deadite behave this way, and he was going to be damned if he was going to risk further trouble. He shot Sheila a look and they both waited for Mufti to lift her head.

Damn if they both didn’t scream together as she reared up toward them.

 

“Mufti!” Ash demanded. “If you’re in there – if you’re anywhere in there at all- gimmie the baby.”

The demon’s smile twisted her lips. “If you want her, Promised, come get her.”

With a flick of Mufti’s wrist, the newborn was airborn. 

Ash moved with as much instinctual prowess as his wife had used to deliver their daughter moments earlier. With one hand, he seized the newborn in mid-air and pulled it toward the safety of his chest. 

With the other, he pulled the gun from his holster.

He and Mufti shared a look of understanding in that moment. Deep within the husk of the demon, he saw the woman’s grace and beauty, her caring heart – and knew suddenly that he must destroy both to ensure the survival of his daughter. 

The Wiseman had been correct to send her to them to help. And she had been brave – had offered herself totally as a vessel to the Deadite horde.

Sheila came to cling to his shoulder, the wind whipping horribly around them, making mincemeat of the happy home they’d made together. Ash thought to himself that the repairs might take forever, but even if they did they’d never take from the heart of the place what mattered – his wife.

_his family._

He didn’t hesitate to decimate the demon before him, and carve the spare parts into mincemeat.

Then he embraced his wife, to whom – somehow, though he didn’t remember it – he’d handed the baby.

When he looked down into the bundle, it was into the smiling face of a lovely, grinning infant. 

“Chip off the ol’ block,” he said, and managed to dig his keys out of the rubble for the long drive to the hospital.

Sheila could only groan her agreement.

***   
_So the moral of the story, kiddies, is to learn how to give a little. But just a little._

_Trust Ash on that one._

_The old and the new ones._


End file.
